


Jester

by ladyoneill



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/pseuds/ladyoneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He manipulates, he lies, but not about everything, and as he gazes at his bright blue eyes, Peter wonders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jester

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fullmoon_ficlet prompt "Burdens", the prompt is not overtly used. Also, I really don't want Peter to be the Darach. Spoilers through 3.08.

Back in the sanctity and quiet of his own apartment, Peter stands in front of the bathroom mirror and let's his eyes flood with the cold, bright blue of his wolf. He stares for a long time, then , sighing softly, lets the wolf fade. It still surprises him. A murderer, yes, proudly, but not of the innocent. Lydia was the closest he came to killing an innocent human, yet she survived.

Leaving the bathroom, he wanders into his well-appointed library and scans the shelves for a specific book. It's small, tucked away between two newer volumes. Pulling it out carefully, he lets his fingers drift along the leather spine, listens for the faint crackle that belies the book's age.

It's been in the Pack for nearly two hundred years. The only saving grace was that it was at the bookbinder's for minor repairs when the fire occurred or it would have burned with the majority of the Hale library.

Sitting down at his desk, Peter opens the book and turns the fragile pages with a light touch until he finds the section on werewolf eye color.

While he'd lied about a lot of things to Stiles and Cora--hiding his involvement in encouraging Derek to have Paige turned--he hadn't lied about the reason for the change in Derek's eye color from gold to blue.

Killing an innocent human for any reason, even mercy, would cause the change.

Killing humans for vengeance, those guilty of crimes against the Pack, killing after being attacked, shouldn't cause the change. Before she became Alpha, his sister killed at least two hunters for coming after her cubs and her eyes remained gold until their mother died peacefully in her sleep. 

So...why were his own eyes blue?

He reads the passages and they tell him all the same things he told the kids as well as what he was told growing up. 

Killing an innocent.

As he reads that passage again, Peter startles. It doesn't say innocent 'human'. Just innocent. 

Innocent.

Grief hits him hard and he sets the book down with suddenly trembling hands.

Laura.

His eyes went from Beta gold to Alpha red, but buried beneath was the blue of a murderer of innocence.

Everyone else he killed for vengeance was guilty, but not the first. Laura fled Beacon Hills, leaving him behind, leaving their territory without Pack to defend it, but she was barely eighteen. He never blamed her for that. Derek might share some guilt in the fire that destroyed them all, but, becoming Alpha healed enough of the damage to Peter's psyche to stop him from killing the boy, and now the thought of ending the life of one of his few remaining family causes him physical pain.

If he hadn't killed Laura, if he'd killed Derek, would his eyes have remained gold? What level of guilt was enough to determine innocence in the person killed?

The book's definitions are too sparse. The only way to know would be experimentation and his curiosity isn't worth manipulating his few remaining Pack into becoming killers.

Although he suspects Cora has blood on her hands. To live as an Omega for over six years, in and out of the foster system, unable to stay too long in one place for fear of Hunters and her own nature hurting those meant to protect her, she ended up on the streets too many times. Peter knows too well the predators that live there.

But, her eyes are golden. If she killed, they deserved it.

What spirit or god determines the change? Or is it something inside the wolf? Did his own soul darken enough with the murder of his niece to cause the change? Did his mind know he deserved the icy blue of killer? It has nothing to do with killing in either cold-blooded or the heat of the moment. Derek killed Paige for love and mercy. Was it simply her innocence that turned his eyes or his own belief that he deserved it?

Peter's frustrated. He likes to know everything. Needs to know everything. Always has. His curiosity led him to the old tree that first time, led him to manipulate Derek, to go to Ennis, just to see what would happen.

The tree.

Peter likes to know everything and he knows, in order to discover the truth of anything, one needs to listen, so he does, to everyone.

Especially to Lydia and Stiles, his bitten beauty and his favorite, and they've been talking about druids and darkness and threefold deaths.

Paige died beneath the druid's tree. Her blood soaked its roots. Did it have anything to do with what's happening now?

Setting aside the one book, he rises to find a few others. He may never know the absolute truth behind their eye color, but that mystery can be set aside for a new one. As he flips open a much more recent volume on druidic lore, a thought hits him that makes him smirk.

Is he a suspect?

And, if he is, how far can he play with that and string along Stiles?

Riling up the boy is one of his favorite past times.

But, in the end, he'll help because the last thing Beacon Hills needs is a dark druid destroying everything he's helped build. Pack. Family. Hales. This is their town, their territory again. Even though it looks like he's doing little, caring even less, it's all a show, because life is simply too dull if you just plod along, doing as you're told.

So, Peter will manipulate and wear his mask of indifference and play behind the scenes as he always has.

He is what he has always been--the court jester, always the wisest one of all. He wears the mantle and carries the load it brings proudly and when he's ready to lay it down, he knows who will pick it up.

Stiles is nearly perfect for the job.

End


End file.
